Happy Name Day

It is "Name Day" in the Doherty household. Today we celebrate 1 year of Matthew officially being a Doherty. The adoption was finalized 1 year ago today. To celebrate, we had my friend Kynda make us a cake. She is fabulous! We love how it turned out...

Here we are with the judge last year after we finalized the adoption...Matthew looks so excited to be a Doherty! :o)


The cake that Kynda made...it looks wonderful! (I am using her pics since our camera broke! New one is on order...)

Relative Visit

Chris's Aunt Betty visited this past week from Colorado. She and Chris's father Harry are one of 10 siblings! Seven of them met this past Wednesday morning at Cherryvale Mall, along with a few of Chris's many cousins. It was nice to get together with them all!

Chris and some of his many cousins, and his Father with six of his siblings...

Matthew Dances 3

Matthew Dances 2

Matthew Dances 1

Door County 2

Matthew and me overlooking the bay at Peninsula State Park...

Some scenery of Door County...

A slow speed chase: Matthew is after a seagull!

Fun shots of Chris and Matthew in Lake Michigan...

Door County 1

We had an awesome mini family vacation to Door County Wisconsin this past week. I think it was our first real family vacation with just the three of us. We drove up last Tuesday to Green Bay, and spent the night. The next morning we got up and drove the rest of the way up into Door County. We stayed at the Apple Creek Resort in Fish Creek. It was nice to stay at a place with a great pool and whirpool. Door County is very beautiful, and it was fun to explore a couple state parks, and spend some time at a beach. The weather cooperated and it was in the mid 70's and sunny everyday for us.

On the pier in Fish Creek...

Posing on the big chair at Julies Cafe where we ate dinner the first night there...

Matthew's first time in a whirlpool...

Matthew's new way to drink water...

Door County Slide Show

I'll post more pics with details later, but I did create this "movie" slide show to view most of the pictures we took while in Door County. It was a great mini family vacation...enjoy!

Grammy Visit

My mother came to visit us for a week while my father went fly fishing in Montana. It was so nice to have her here, and her help with Matthew! We took her one afternoon to Anderson Japanese Garden's as a "thank you" for watching Matthew for us while we went to Galena. The gardens there are so beautiful, and it is just a couple miles from our house! On Friday we made the trek out to Edward's Apple Orchard to shop, and get some yummy apple cider donuts. Matthew had fun playing on the tractors and all the fun stuff outside.

At Anderson Japanese Gardens...

The view of the main pond is gorgeous...

Some pics from Edwards Apple Orchard...Matthew loved the donuts!

New Haircut

On Wednesday I got my haircut. I decided to go a little shorter. It is much easier to do!

Galena Get-Away

Chris and I had a fabulous get-away to Galena, IL, to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We arrived around lunchtime on Monday, ate at Vinny Vanucchi's, and shopped some of the cool stores downtown. Then we took the short trek out of town to Galena Cellars Vineyard for some wine tasting. After that we headed to our awesome bed and breakfast/inn, the Inn at Irish Hollow, to check in. Chris surprised me with a dozen roses waiting in the room! That evening we drove back to town to eat at 111 Main, and had a great dinner. In the morning we were treated to an outstanding breakfast of fruit, chocolate-zucchini muffins, and a plate of corn cakes with red bell pepper relish, organic herb scrambled eggs, and chicken/apple sausage. We then each had 75 minute massages with a hot stone therapy treatment. It was bliss! Hard to come back to the real world, but my mother (who was watching Matthew), was nice enough to let us go out the evening we got back to see the movie Julie and Julia. A wonderful end to a fantastic two days.

Some shots of downtown, and the food we ate...

Chris and I at lunch and dinner...


The Inn at Irish Hollow...